Chapter 11: The Sibling Pact

It was a week after Normaltail's confession, the gathering had been cancelled due to extreme storms that had been happening. It was the morning, and Stevehawk was ordering patrols.
"Llamabla- I mean Budlight, take Heartburn, Newsky, and Ricetooth. Go patrol the borders. Shiningbeauty, take Moonshine and Lizardsneeze and go hunt somewhere. Toastfire."
The tom hadn't really expected his name to be called last, "Y-Yeah, dad?"
"Take Salmonpaw, Hardpaw, Scotchpaw, and Palepaw to go train. The little demons need to run free for a bit." The red tom sighed, and flicked his tail towards the apprentice's den, where they all were chasing each other and falling to the ground. "We need to tidy up the camp, and we don't really need their help." Stevehawk chuckled and turned to walk over to Goodstar, Monkeytail, and Normaltail. Toastfire awkwardly made his way over towards the apprentices. "Um, hey... Stevehawk told me to take you all out to train, we should get going..." He somehow felt bad talking to these apprentices, having a warrior name and trying to talk to them as an equal. Did they judge him for that? Scotchpaw broke his thoughts, "Alright, come on, guys!"
"I'm not a guy!" Palepaw huffed, standing up and walking over to Toastfire. "Shut up, Palepoop." Scotchpaw snickered, but quickly apologized. "Sorry, won't do that again!" Salmonpaw and Hardpaw glanced at each other with a glance, all too familiar with this situation, apparently. The five stood in silence, and made their way to the training site. There, Toastfire decided to have a sparring match. He watched as Hardpaw and Palepaw fought with claws sheathed, although it looked like it would be in a war fight. He looked uncomfortably at them, but Salmonpaw calmed him. "Don't worry, we wouldn't actually hurt each other. We just like to take things to an extreme." He said casually, green eyes narrowed. Scotchpaw chimed in, "Yeah, we've had worse than this! One time we-" "Please never speak of the tree incident!" Salmonpaw said, face red with embarrassment. Toastfire decided not to ask. Palepaw had pinned their brother to the ground in the time that the three were talking. "I won!" Palepaw shouted, sounding surprised with themselves. Hardpaw chuckled, obviously okay with being beaten. Scotchpaw and Salmonpaw smiled, and in almost perfect harmony got up and replaced their siblings places, and vice versa. The match began, and the two started fighting with no mercy except for the no claws rule. Toastfire felt almost jealous with the four's siblingship, how they cared so much for each other.
Time passed, and soon the Sun had reached it's highest peak. The five decided to head home. Toastfire stayed in the back, watching out for potential danger. Suddenly, Scotchpaw's whiskers twitched and she casually turned away from the group. "I have to be somewhere." She said, as if it was a perfectly logical thing to say while she went off alone. Toastfire knew the three other apprentices would be okay together, and sent them off to camp. He then raced after Scotchpaw.
The dark brown tom followed the ginger she-cat as she raced towards the border to loner territory. No. She couldn't be. Toastfire's head ran wild with panic, and he shouted. "Wait up!"
Scotchpaw turned around and looked terrified. She backed away and suddenly tumbled down into a nearby pit. The warrior then burst towards the hole and yelled. "Are you okay?" He didn't want another one on his body count. He sighed with relief at the sound of Scotchpaw's voice. "Yeah, I'm okay! Help me out, though!" Toastfire didn't want to leave her alone, so he decided to wait. He examined the pit which Scotchpaw had fallen into.
The pit was a giant crater, with about 4 yards in diameter. Toastfire couldn't tell how deep the pit was, but it was enough for it to be a challenge for a small cat like Scotchpaw to climb out of. "Mind if I try to find a branch or something?" The tom called down, and the apprentice nodded. As soon as the tabby turned around, Scotchpaw screamed something he didn't want to hear.
"Breadclaw, help! Please!"
And with that call, the light brown figure of the exiled warrior came out of the other side of the pit from Toastfire. He looked dead in the eyes. Lifeless, grey eyes. Toastfire stood in shock and panic as the tom gracefully leapt into the pit and faced the ginger she-cat. "Scotchpaw, run! Don't just stand there!" Toastfire called, afraid to move. "Shut up, he's okay!" The apprentice called up and faced Breadclaw. The two had a conversation that the warrior couldn't hear, which ended up with Scotchpaw lowering her ears and Breadclaw lifting her effortlessly out of the pit by her scruff. He then ran off without a word.
"What the hell did you do?" Toastfire muttered.
It took a second for Scotchpaw to answer. "We started meeting... He told me he'd help me... We.-"
"Now hold on there just a second, kiddo. You shouldn't be meeting up with him, he's a monster. He's killed three cats in our clan at the very least. You're taking a big risk believing his lies."
"But he said that he was being possessed by a spirit... That he couldn't help what he was doing..."
"No, he's not, Scotchpaw. He's lying to get close to you, get some information. His path of life should not have to trample over yours because of a mistake you made. Stop visiting him is my best suggestion, but I can't actually stop it. I won't tell anyone if that makes you feel better."
The apprentice looked dazed, her eyes showed her future hope shattered. But she seemed to understand, now that she thought about it. "... Alright. I'll stop. Tonight will be the last night." She calmly said, looking slightly sad. Toastfire felt pity for the younger she-cat, and he set his tail on her shoulder. "Come on, let's get you to camp. We'll need to get those scratches taken care of."

Eyyy look who finally updated! Sorry it took so long!